Word: brazilianizing
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What had gone wrong? Mainly the planning by the Peace Corps administration. But a large share of the blame should fall on the Brazilian officials involved, and on some of the volunteers themselves...
First of all, the Brazil project was obviously a rush job. On the Brazilian end, the CVSF headquarters put out a list of requests without much consultation with its branches in the interior. When Peace Corps directors from Rio flew into the interior on a check, they found most village officials very vague about what the volunteers would be doing. The CVSF people would assure the Corps officials that their superiors knew about work for the volunteers, but that unfortunately the superiors were travelling...
Thus there are many facts to support the Brazilian charge that the Peace Corps was sloppy in the selection and training of its volunteers. In Washington the defense is that it is a deliberate policy of the corps to choose all-around, adaptable types instead of specialists. If that is so, then the Peace Corps' fundamental error was in signing the contract with the CVSF. The CVSF expected experts and did not get many. The few specialists who came to Brazil were let down by the CVSF. The Peace Corps stood to lose every way, and did. Because they were...
...experts" in a specific field. They are supposed to be prepared to do almost anything. Instead of working with CVSF counterparts separated from village life, they are now following the Lapa example of working through the townspeople. Not only are they doing better work, they are drawing closer to Brazilian village society...
...What the Brazilian case has shown, above all, is that the Peace Corps profect cannot be run as another kid program. The Corps administrators should have realized that the CVSF contract was putting the Brazil project into a Four Point guise that would inevitably lead to trouble. The project is finally turning out well because the administrators and volunteers are trying a more modest approach. The "helping-out-around-the-village" role of the Brazil volunteers may not sound impressive but it is effective. A favorable sign is that the requests being sent to the Rio Peace Corps office...